Re: RFC: 1.7.33 problem with user's home directory

[Andrey Repin <anrdaemon at yandex dot ru>]

Greetings, Corinna Vinschen!

>> >> > Shall the "db" entries utilize the Windows home folder if it exits(*)
>> >> > and drop using the unixHomeDirectory?  It seems inevitableâ
>> >> 
>> >> Use of AD implies some level of security consciousness.  The ability to write to c:\cygwin â not just during installation, but during all use thereafter! â comes out of a world where every user is a local Administrator.
>> >> 
>> >> This answer I wrote on Stack Overflow is one way to solve the problem today:
>> >> 
>> >>     http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26666180/
>> >> 
>> >> It might not be a bad idea if Cygwin started doing this sort of thing by default in the future.  (Obviously for new installs only.)
>> 
>> > What I gather from the replies so far is this:
>> 
>> > - Nobody really cares for unixHomeDirectory.
>> 
>> As I understand it from replies, it's not "nobody care", it's "this is wrong
>> way of doing it".

> It's not the wrong thing if it's not used for anything else in a
> company.

I would step away from any possible if's as much as... possible in such case.

>> > Another:
>> 
>> > 1. Add a setting to /etc/nsswitch.conf which allows to specify one of
>> >   the above:
>> 
>> >     home: [unix|win|home]...
>> 
>> >    - "unix" means, set pw_dir to unixHomeDirectory
>> >    - "win" means, set pw_dir to homeDirectory
>> >    - "home" means, set pw_dir to /home/$USER
>> >    - Multiple entries are possible.
>> >    - Default in the absence of this setting is: always set pw_dir to
>> >      /home/$USER.
>> 
>> How about a slight modification to this?
>> 
>> nsswitch.conf configurable settings:
>> user: Use %AppData%/Cygwin%PLATFORM% (Separate directory for different
>> platform Cygwins)

> I really don't like this one.

I'm just summing up suggestions that have been raised in the list for last
day. :)

> Your naming scheme (user/system/cygwin) has its merits, but I don't see that
> a home directory of any sort belongs under AppData.

Not home directory. User profile directory.
https://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2014-11/msg00201.html

%AppData%/Cygwin == %HOMEPATH%/AppData/Roaming/Cygwin

From corporate environment point of view, Cygwin is an application like every
other one, and expected to behave according to environment standards, not
invent its own. Windows environment standard dictates, that if an application
intend to store large amount of user-specific files, it should do so uder
%AppData%, or %LocalAppData% for discardable or hardware-specific environment.


--
WBR,
Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@yandex.ru) 11.11.2014, <23:01>

Sorry for my terrible english...